October 08 2025 -- Carnegie Mellon University Associate Professor Sufei Shi has been selected by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to be part of the 2025 cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators. He joins a select group of 21 other mid-career researchers from around the country, each receiving $1.3 million over five years to pursue research goals that accelerate breakthroughs and strengthen the experimental physics community.

“We once again received proposals from amazing mid-career investigators who are taking their research to new levels,” said Theodore Hodapp, program director for the initiative. “We are excited to see them join our existing cohorts of experimental physicists who are pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the universe.”

Shi is a leading expert in the quantum physics of two-dimensional materials with a recent focus on excitonic physics, which studies neutral bound pairs of an electron and a positively charged “hole” — a missing electron — that forms in semiconductors when light is absorbed.

“Many of the most exciting and useful quantum behaviors — like superconductivity — come from the strong interactions between quasi-particles,” Shi said. “But these systems are so complex that we cannot fully understand them even using the most powerful classical computers.”

Shi aims to establish a flexible and scalable platform for quantum simulation, enabling deeper exploration of complex quantum systems that underlie technologies such as superconductors and quantum computers.

“The impact of Shi’s work promises to accelerate innovations in quantum-enabled technologies,” said Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, the Glen de Vries Dean of the Mellon College of Science. “His work exemplifies the power and impact of interdisciplinary research.”

Leveraging his multidisciplinary expertise and advanced nanofabrication knowledge, Shi has made influential contributions to low-dimensional quantum physics. Most recently, he led a research team that included UC Riverside, Arizona State University and other collaborators in identifying a promising approach to controlling excitonic states in an atomically thin semiconductor. The work was published in Nature Photonics.

Among the collaborators on the paper were other Carnegie Mellon faculty members, including Ben Hunt, associate director of physics and co-director of the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute, and Shubhayu Chatterjee, assistant professor of physics. Rachel Mandelbaum, head of the Department of Physics, said that since joining Carnegie Mellon in 2023, Shi’s collaborations with both experiment and theoretical physicists have already yielded promising results.

“It’s exciting to see how experimentalists and theorists working together can push the boundaries of quantum research,” Mandelbaum said. “I look forward to seeing the impact of the innovative research Sufei has planned with support from the Moore Foundation’s Experimental Physics Investigators program.”

Using moiré superlattices — created by precisely aligning atomically thin materials — Shi’s team can precisely tune exciton behavior using electric fields to drive and stabilize transitions between exciton configurations. This approach bridges condensed matter and atomic physics, with the potential to enable scalable and flexible simulations of quantum systems beyond the reach of classical computation.

The research could inform the design of next-generation quantum devices with implications in fields such as quantum optoelectronics and information processing.

Shi’s planned research using the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation support will take two approaches to developing a new platform for quantum simulation.

In one approach, the researchers will use advanced nanofabrication and optical techniques to trap large, highly excited excitons in custom-designed patterns. In the other, they will use moiré patterns in well-aligned stacks of atomically thin semiconductors to confine excitons and control their behavior through tuning parameters such as electric fields and doping.

“These two complementary methods will allow us to precisely tune exciton interactions and explore a wide range of quantum phenomena,” Shi said. “Our approach is unique in combining condensed matter physics and device engineering with knowledge from atomic physics, enabling scalable and flexible quantum simulations.”

Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon, Shi was an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University.